#// reformatting preemptively because i got permission to turn this into a mini thread >:3

[aimlessarchery]

from @viridescent-lance​

"Python! Happy birthday!" Forsyth bursts into Python's room without knocking. A common occurrence, though he's tried his best to temper it lest he intrude on something he'd like to unsee. Thankfully, Python is fully clothed and actually doing something productive, sharpening the whittling knife Forsyth had gifted him for his last birthday. It makes his heart swell a little. "I hope it's been a good one thus far. I apologize for being so late..."

Forsyth's been swamped with post-mission work, be it aftermath or catch-up. He's not one to shirk his work, but if he'd finished it a little more swiftly than normal, no one will be the wiser.

"I've come to deliver you your present, and perhaps to spend some time together?" The bottle of wine is very obvious in its shape even wrapped, but at least the archer's gloves aren't immediately guessable. Forsyth does feel a little forward, but this is something he wishes to do and he will allot himself this, especially on his partner's birthday!

"Looks like you've been popular today!" Gifts are strewn about the room, a dagger, several sets of arrows...and a beautiful, luxurious bouquet. Huh. Flowers? They're tucked away unceremoniously in the back of his room, but it's a fresh bouquet. Forsyth stifles a laugh at the thought of someone gifting Python flowers, of all things.

(Well, Forsyth did get him flowers, once, didn't he? These are exceedingly expensive, though, he can tell. And yet Python's thrown them in the back to be accidentally crushed later...)

"May I ask how you happened upon those flowers?" Forsyth picks them up carefully, making certain not to crush the blooms. They really are beautiful, and their colors seem almost perfectly aligned with Forsyth's armor, of all things.

To be quite honest, Python’s not used to his birthday being such an event. The majority of the gifts he’s received have been awkwardly deposited at his desk until he can determine where to store them. In the meantime, there’s a gift from last year to tend to. The knife that Forsyth had given him—he’d used it to carve through a bear, or at least he’d thought he had. Only the goddess knows what the hell he had actually been cutting into behind the veneer of Celephais’s illusions.

Whatever it was, it had still done a number on the blade. He scrapes it across a whetstone in an smooth, even rhythm—interrupted by the sharp staccato of his door being unceremoniously thrown open. "Crivens, Fors. You ever gonna learn how to knock?" He twists toward Forsyth in his chair with a sigh, knife still in hand. A glance is spared back toward the bouquet in question. "The flowers were from Caeda. She..." His eyes move back to Forsyth, and then to the shape of the gifts in his arms. One of them is difficult to discern, but the other is quite obvious. "...Awkward story, actually. I think I'd rather tell it over a glass of something, maybe." His eyebrows raise expectantly.

#[ ic ] #viridescent-lance #// reformatting preemptively because i got permission to turn this into a mini thread >:3 #t: birthday blooms